Sachin Tendulkar refuses honorary Doctorate

Legendary cricketer Sachin Tendulkar has refused to accept an honorary Doctorate of Literature that was to be conferred on him by Jadavpur University at their 63rd Annual Convocation on December 24. University vice-chancellor Suranjan Das said Tendulkar in an email recently informed that he will not be able to accept it “due to ethical reasons.” When Tendulkar was asked for a further explanation, he said he doesn’t accept an honour of this stature from any university, and had earlier turned down Oxford University as well.

After the news of Sachin’s refusal reached Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi, who is also the Chancellor of Jadavpur University, it was decided that the D. Lit would now be conferred on Indian Olympic boxer Mary Kom instead. Besides Mary Kom, Hematologist and Director of Tata Medical Centre, Dr Mammen Chandy, eminent economist Kaushik Basu, banker Chandrasekhar Ghosh will also receive the D. Lit. Apart from this, molecular biologist Dipankar Chatterji will be given the honorary D. Sc. Tendulkar had also refused to accept a similar offer from the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences in 2011.